oops sorry I should have explained.. Well really it just doesn't work. when i used the default Serial it did light up the LED on pin 13 upon entering the following text"1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1" followed by Enter. However as soon as i switch the Serial to Serial1. nothing happens. I can enter a million "1 1 1" followed by enter but the LED does not light up. I hope i have explained myself well. if you need any further details please do let me know

Well, the way you set up your code, Messenger processes messages comming in through Serial1. You therefore have to send the messages to Serial1 instead of Serial. What external circuitry are you using to do so?

When i change my code to serial then it uses the on board FTDI chip and it works. however on the other port i have a MAX233 chip which works fine because when I run the monitor I can see what the Arduino Mega is sending out(Serial.println). it just doesn't seem to pick up what I send to it through the serial monitor

I am sorry, I still do not understand your configuration.The Arduino Mega is plugged into your computer's USB (that is Serial). You have a MAX233 plugged into RX1, TX1 (Serial1). So you generate RS-232 level communication with the chip and that is plugged where? What is connected on the other side of the MAX233?

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MAX233 chip which works fine because when I run the monitor I can see what the Arduino Mega is sending out(Serial.println)

Which monitor? The Arduino IDE's? Doesn't it only work with RX,TX and Serial? Do you mean you are echoing something like:

The second serial port is connected to the Serial port of a Computer. and I am running tera term pro(as a serial monitor). eventually I would like to have Processing(www.processing.org) send out stuff to the Arduino but that would be at a later stage. so for now I have connected Serial1 to the computer via a MAX233 chip. My apologies for not explaining myself well.

while (Serial1.available() ) Serial.print(Serial1.read()); that lets the Arduino IDE's Serial Monitor echo whatever you send from tera term pro.

Are you sure that tera term pro is sending carriage returns? Carriage returns must be sent to terminate a message.

Please test the following code. Send either a "0" or a "1" followed by a carriage return to either Serial or Serial1. A 1 will turn on the LED at pin 13, a 0 will turn it off. Also, all data received by Serial will be echoed to Serial1, and the opposite is also true.

- So i had 2 monitors open. One was monitoring "Serial"(USB) and the other was monitoring "Serial1". When i type into "Serial" it turned the LED on and off the way it was supposed to. and the "Serial1" monitor would also echo back whatever i typed with absolutely no problems. however when i type into "Serial1" nothing happens to the LED and Nothing is echoed back on the "Serial" monitor

to me this confirms that the problem is not with Messenger but with your input/output of Serial1.

The echo is not part of Messenger and should work without it. Check your connections and make sure that whatever you send to Serial1 is echoed to Serial. Once you have a solid bi-directional communication between both (that both monitors echo the other), you can try to add Messenger.

You are right.Messenger only provides methods for incomming messages. The examples demonstrates how to receive messages with Messenger's messageCompleted() callback function but also demonstrates how to send messages so they can be parsed with the matching Messenger libraries for Max or Processing.

This example parses a message that contains the values of an Arduino's analog inputs and displays them as rectangles.The message must be composed of the readings of the 6 inputs. Each readingis separated by a space (' ') and terminated by a carriage return and line feed

is there somehwere an example with processing>arduino communication. i tried using the simpleMessage examples but that didnt work. those messanger support the simpleMess protocol

as a matter of fact i thinkn all this software protocols between arduino and the computer are bad education. i searched for serial.flush() and was directed to http://todbot.com/blog/2009/07/30/arduino-serial-protocol-design-patterns/, i think this is the direction should go. tommorow i have to explain conditions to a seeduino mega and a processingxp

I will try to understand your posts as best as I can.The Processing example supplied with the Messenger library works very with the Arduino example provided.

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I might be missing something there, the comment of the example im refering to is [...] is there somehwere an example with processing>arduino communication. i tried using the simpleMessage examples but that didnt work. those messanger support the simpleMess protocol

As stated in Messenger's documentation: All of your host software code that you designed for SimpleMessageSystem should still be compatible with Messenger. You will simply have to modify your Arduino code.

So you need to modify the Arduino code to match the software code.

I think the simplest solution for you would be to use Firmata (try my version here)

im using a mega, which is unsupported (the changelog tells it does, everyone else it doesnt).thanks for your support, i will have to warp my head around bytes eventually. i think its for the best. i used some code from the previous link i mentioned and from this megaServo example.